Share this article

The daughter of Franz Josef Strauß, the late conservative premier of Bavaria, said on Monday the leftist terrorist group the Red Army Faction (RAF) planned to kill him with a model airplane wired with explosives in 1977.

Monika Hohlmeier told daily Bild that former RAF member Verena Becker had rented an apartment in a Munich high-rise in order to plot an attack on her father. “That's where the terrorists moved in and watched our apartment with telescopes, spied on us,” she said, explaining that plans were found showing the leftist extremists wanted to use the model airplane to blow up Strauß and his family.

Strauß, a fiery right-wing populist who died in 1988, was a strong proponent of taking a hard line against the RAF, which terrorized West Germany throughout much of the 1970s. The group, led by Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, carried out a series of kidnappings, assassinations and bombings before disbanding formally in 1998.